Last April, Public Innovators co-hosted with the Aspen Institute a panel discussion about government's role in promoting social innovation and entrepreneurship. This event served as the public release of our report Advancing Social Entrepreneurship: Recommendations for Policy Makers and Government Agencies and included the following panelists:

• Andrew Wolk, Founder and CEO of Root Cause and Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship at MIT
• Michele Jolin, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress
• Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu of Louisiana
• Katherine Freund, Founder and CEO of ITNAmerica
• Frederick Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

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Minnesota Public Radio conducted an interview today with Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, current Harvard Business School professor, and author of the recent book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. In his remarks, George argued forcefully that, “the comparative advantage of the United States is in entrepreneurship and innovation”. He went on to advocate that, as the federal government determines its response to the financial crisis, it should focus on further strengthening these characteristics.

This reminded us of an intriguing blog entry that Nathaniel Whittemore of change.org wrote on the eve of the presidential election entitled “Barack Obama and the American Spirit of Social Entrepreneurship”. He reviews the history of s.e.:

Barack Obama was elected the United States' 44th president last night after the longest - and perhaps most exciting - campaign in American history. The task of tackling the many challenges facing the country and the world now begins - and all signs indicate that greater support for social innovation and entrepreneurship will be part of the strategy. In his campaign platform, Obama had called for the development of both a Social Investment Fund Network and a Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits. He also co-sponsored, along with Senator McCain, the recently introduced Serve America Act, which includes several components supportive of social entrepreneurship.

With less than 50 days until Election Day, the presidential candidates are working hard to point out their differences. By the tenor of this election, you’d never know there are issues on which the candidates actually agree! But there are, and policies that support the work of social entrepreneurs are among them.

For example, Senators McCain and Obama recently co-sponsored The Serve America Act of 2008, new legislation that recognizes the work of social entrepreneurs and includes several policy ideas that would foster and support social entrepreneurship.

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While the Republican National Convention was in St. Paul this week, Minnesota Public Radio gathered a bipartisan group of former diplomats and a former U.S. congressman from Minnesota to discuss some of the foreign policy challenges facing the next president.

In summarizing the commonalities between the foreign policy challenges that panelists had listed, former Secretary of State and current chair of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Madeleine Albright had this to say:

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The America Forward coalition is honored to partner with Root Cause and Public Innovators to present new ideas for ways social entrepreneurs and government can work together to solve our nation’s most pressing domestic challenges.  Together, we share the belief that matching social entrepreneurs’ innovative solutions with the policy and political reach of government has the potential to make a profound and lasting positive impact on communities across the nation.  

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Louisiana’s Lieutenant Governor recently took part in a roundtable, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and Root Cause Public Innovators, to discuss the newly released report, "Advancing Social Entrepreneurship: Recommendations for Policy Makers and Government Agencies".  Included in the panel were a government official, a social entrepreneur, two think tank policy experts representing the political left and right, and an expert on social entrepreneurship.